While completing a segment of the course that I am currently teaching, spontaneously said to my students, “How you carry things forward is completely your prerogative from now on. I was here not to give you the text, but just the context.”

A student asked me before I could complete the segment: “Ma’am, why is it so, that many of the lives of these great writers or poets or singers are so dark? Why does it happen that they live in pain?” My response was : “See, reading literature, enjoying literature, and living literature are different things. These people “lived” literature. Anxiety for acceptance and the lack of it are probably one of the reasons. These great writers, poets, musicians, sculptors, etc. kept on struggling with the anxiety of being accepted by themselves,the world, by peers, and by a lot of people. For them, money and livelihood was also important because they had chosen a profession which did not pay a lot, they also were struggling for love, or else an intellectual acceptance by peers”. I hope this interpretation made sense to people. I have been thinking of a few questions that come along these lines — How is it that we are accepted or rejected by people? On what basis is an acceptance or non-acceptance? It might be intellectual in nature or emotional in nature. When I thought a little in-depth, decided to bring a slice of literature and life to Iris for you all. Thought of carrying some parts of my discussion “how popular is popularity?” from the last article in a new form in this article. I am drawing a few threads for this article from my classroom experiences, from personal conversations, and from life in general.

I was in conversation with a friend and asked him: “How do people deal with rejections?I mean how do they deal with or possibly live with something like a ‘break-up’ or an emotional ‘un-acceptance’ in personal/ professional circles or among peers?When a paper gets repeatedly rejected or when people don’t consider your views seriously? He had an interesting response to share. He said something like the following: “This happens when people keep things repressed. They struggle with rejecting the emotion in the first place. They think of ‘growing out’ of it soon and for them the ideal is the greatest source of agony or joy. The simplest solution is to ‘accept it’ and live with it, until the scars are wiped out and whenever one recollects, it is not bitterness but happiness that brings back memories of the moments spent.”

When I was very young, I used to enjoy reading these lines a lot. Now, when I think of these lines, I feel that the anxiety of acceptance is so potently present in the poem. Possibly, I personally associated with the lines very much because had a strange story with places — was in general unrecognized in the places and by the people with whom I lived or contributed to. The anonymity which Wordsworth writes of was the kind of anonymity that I have always existed in.

“Fair as a star, when only one is shining in the sky”.

And now when I am enveloped with many varieties of students, I have bitterly felt the truth of these lines. There are those young boys and girls who need no push or drive. They are deeply motivated by themselves, these are the achievers who make it big both professionally and personally. On the other hand, there are those stars that wait to twinkle only when the rest of the sky is getting dense and dark. They cannot shine by themselves, because they wait for a push, a polish, a drive for being accepted, and often get lost on the way. Academics calls some of them ‘the poor students’, but possibly the fear of ‘un-acceptance’ is so deeply grounded in them that it makes them passive, and un-interested. Some of them can be nurtured back with a real push or a constructed acceptance, while many have to be left behind because life and time do not always give a chance.

A moment’s acceptance/rejection can be life changing. Citing a story again from my personal experiences. Was in the Undergraduate classes. We had a course titled “The History of English Literature“, where one had to read and analyze the entire history of British literature from Chaucer to the twentieth century writings of Eliot, D.H.Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, etc. I was pathetically poor in that subject. Too afraid, too nervous. The subject was itself notorious in the University for giving the maximum flukes. One day, I wrote a long essay on the history of ‘The University Wits‘ (Marlowe, Kyd, Nash, etc.) and took it to Usha Ma’am (Prof. Usha Sundari) (she is no more) for review. Like me there were many others who had submitted their own write-ups. When she came the next morning with our edited write-ups, she encouraged each and everyone with good comments. When it was my turn, she threw the notebook at my face saying: “You people are good for nothing. As girls you all know that you are in demand in the bridal market because of a degree in literature. You think that any rubbish you write makes ‘History of English Literature’? Go and change to some other Arts subject which will fetch you marks. My dear, literature is the toughest bait of the world and I do not want students like you ruining it.”

I was devastated by this dramatic, utter, pure rejection. Thought of seriously changing my subject. Living in this claustrophobic atmosphere was tough for me for a long time. One day I decided to meet one of my favorite Professors with whom I shared my trauma. She laughed out aloud and said, “If Usha said this to you, then be rest assured that if you put the hardwork, then you are going to top the University. She is not a goldsmith, she is a diamond-smith — that is her style. However, that also means it is your HARDEST work to prove her wrong — lets see who wins when a challenge like that is presented.”

These moments of acceptances and rejections do prove to be dramatic and life changing. For instance, a “yes” or “no” in the hospital marks the thin line between life and death. Or take day to day lives, we post pictures, posts, thoughts on Social Sites for not only ‘sharing’ but also ‘acceptance’.

I stop here today. Let me grab a bite for lunch. Till then, you enjoy reading and look at the ‘Pie-Chart’ that Panapatti has sent as a gift to Iris on its 30K mark. Bbye! Take care of yourselves! See you very soon 🙂

NOTE: Seasons Greetings and a very warm Durga Puja wishes to all my readers. Recently, I recieved an interesting read from one of my students, Parth Kanungo. Parth has recently completed his B.Tech in Computer Science and is a team member of the ‘Creatineers’. He wrote this story as a guest post for ‘Iris’. This post, its opinions, its authorship, and writing solely belongs to Parth.

This is my story of he search of the veracity of “truth”. Since my childhood, like all other children, I have been taught to speak the truth. In schools, we used to have a moral science class. At homes, we had parents who imparted the moral education. And, there were anecdotes in books like Nandan, Champak and Chandamama, which also inspired similar thoughts. And, I followed the principle quite proudly.

However, the situation somehow changed when I grew up. Truthfulness no longer remained a simple rule to follow. People welcomed me and greeted by saying – “this is the real world. To survive here, you have to take help of lies.” I was not convinced. In fact, I did not want to be convinced, because at times the deep-rooted intuition tells you how to differ from right to wrong; and in those circumstances you go by your intuition.

But, if all are saying the same thing – “lying is good” or as someone else once put it – “MBAs are paid to tell lies,” I guessed that there must be some truth in what these people said. These were people far more experienced than me. I thought – maybe, the principle of truthfulness had some inherent flaws. Maybe it was wrong. I did not know. We had learnt many things in our childhood only to unlearn them later on. Possibly, it was a similar principle. The truth about truth was lying hidden somewhere. Thus, I decided to find it.

So, the search began in one of the discussions on a Thursday night at ‘Sankalp’ (a social service group at the LNMIIT where students gather each Thursday for a discussion on life and its various aspects). I raised the question and got differing opinions. The overall conclusion I remember was not something new and hence the curiosity was not satisfied. Then, some days later in another session of the Thursday night discussions, we invited a person who had come from IIT-K and was working for the preservation of what he called “lok-gyan” (That’s what I remember). But, more importantly, he had studied ethics. I realized that this could be my chance to get to know the truth (considering that he was one among the Wise).

I put up a question in front of him. I do not remember where I had heard this question for the first time. However, it is unwittingly quoted by many as an argument that speaking truth is not always the right thing to do. So, I asked the same question – “Assume that a hunter is going through the forest chasing a deer. The deer runs fast through the narrow patch of space in the bushes, and vanishes somewhere near an ashram. The hunter, unsure of which way the deer went, asks the sage sitting nearby – ‘Where did the deer go?’ What should the sage say?”

Wait for a moment and think about your answer and then continue reading.

Our guest answered, “of course, he should tell the truth.”

“Why?”

“Because first of all, you cannot assume there is a cause-and-effect relationship between the two events, i.e., telling the truth and killing of deer. How can you be sure that if the sage tells the truth, the deer would be killed for sure?”

“But, there is high probability,” I said.

“No, there is not. Tell me, why does the story mention a sage, and not a normal person?”

“I don’t know. He could have been anyone, not necessarily a sage.”

A smile came up on his face, and he said, “But, you see that the story talks about a sage. Does it not? And, that is my second point. Actually, you forgot to notice that the sage has a power, the power that he gains through his ‘saadhana’. And, through that power he will make sure that nothing happens to the deer, despite his telling the truth.”

The answer was far from satisfactory. It did not appeal to common-sense and thus did not convince me.

Two years later another person came to the campus, and I raised the same question in front of him. Interestingly, he too had studied ethics. His answer was – “he should tell a lie.” Two contradictory opinions emerging from people with similar intellectual backgrounds!

I asked if telling a lie was the right thing to do. I even quoted Gandhiji’s statement – “Means and Ends both must be justified.” To elucidate this, I presented an example – “If there are two factions with obvious differences, the ruler may decide to kill all the people belonging to one particular faction. The end-result would be peace and harmony. But, are the means used to achieve the noble goal justifiable? Thus, to save the life of the deer (the end I seek), if I tell a lie (the mean I use), it would be wrong.”

He defended his position by saying that the two situations were not comparable.

At that moment I had a query in mind and it was something I had asked two years ago also, but had received an unconvincing answer. I asked it again, “what if the sage says – ‘I know the way, but I don’t want to tell you.’ Wouldn’t that be a good way?”

And, that was an instant eureka moment. He said that it was an interesting thought and cited some philosophical term which was close to the concept I was trying to convey. He completely agreed with me, and added that “the sage can even continue to be silent and not speak at all.” If the sage does not want to talk, the hunter cannot force him.

Thus, the philosophical theoretical question was resolved. And, I was happy, because my intuition was proved right.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

This is just one side of the story. There is another side to the story, which altered my belief, failed my intuition and once again left me in a dilemma.

“Can I speak truth my entire life?” I asked my sixth-class history teacher whom I visited recently. She is a Buddhist and told me – “We live in a practical world, not an ideal world.” She added that she would like to speak truth all the time, however that is not possible. I asked her why, to which she replied – “The other day I had guests from out of town. And, they had come without informing me beforehand. So, I mentioned the reason in the school office to get a leave from the school. The administration told me that ‘this was no reason to be granted a leave’, even after the fact that I was allowed 7 (or whatever number of) casual leaves in a year.”

I could relate with that experience of hers. And, that is when it dawned on me that merely answering a hypothetical question to know what is right is equivalent to trying to finding out the effect of gravity on an object in vacuum. In vacuum, the effect can be accurately described; but in the presence of air, that is impossible. In terms of what I dub as ‘intellectual-blabbering”, the sage argument is valid to make. But, in real-life the situation is a lot different.

Interestingly, in the Jewish tradition, lying is not completely forbidden, if it is used to achieve a noble goal. The point is depicted beautifully in the movie “Life Is Beautiful”. If Joshua the kid had known the truth about his existence in the Concentration Camp, he would not have survived. It was the witty lies of his father that brought him out alive from that terrible place.

So, is telling a lie a good thing?

There are situations when people ask – “how was my performance on stage?”, “how was my speech?”, “did I do well?” In such situations, sometimes, a lie is what makes the questioner happy.

So, is telling a lie a good thing?

Some people suggest, “As long as your lie benefits you and does not hurt or cause harm to someone else, there is nothing wrong.”

So, is telling a lie a good thing?

Do you want to build up trust? There is only a single way – be honest and truthful.

So, is telling a lie not a good thing?

Sometimes I feel as if all of us are like the seven blinds; and like them we are trying to understand the truth. Were they able to understand the truth about the elephant? Someone needs to operate upon them and give them eyes to see and understand the real elephant. Similarly, someone needs to give us ‘eyes of wisdom’ to enable us to see the truth about truth. Will that ever happen?

While I wait for a miracle to happen; while I wait for my ‘eyes of wisdom’; while I wait for the true answer, I consider it prudent to believe in the words of a professor of mine. Here is what he had to say…

“In life there are a lot of questions, that simply do not have an answer in black or white. Many-a-times life is about that grey region. You cannot stick to one side strictly. The question you ask is one among the many whose answer you seek throughout your life. My personal opinion is that the context is very important. And, depending on that you should make a choice – a wise choice.”

I started my stint as a teacher after leaving IIT B, quarreling with Aristotle and with a class of amazingly curious wide-eyed undergraduate technocrats who have possibly lived and breathed Eckert, Cerf, Shannon, Computer vision, Micro-controllers, fiber-optics, and TCP/IP . Today I look back upon my first anniversary as a teacher — and I celebrate 🙂 . As an individual transforming from the eternally defiant student to the other side of the table it was sudden and at times excruciating because of my set principles and comfortable casting zone in the cool role of a student.

Traveling over the past one year through the length and breadth of the country’s educational institutions has been an eye-opener — students are similar as well as extremely unique in their own ways. Only through teaching and interaction does one understand these similarities and uniqueness. As I review the past one year, it surprises me that I have lived and experienced three educational institutions — two of them being new IITs and one LNMIIT, Jaipur. Last July, when I started teaching a course in Indian Literature at LNMIIT, I circulated a poster with some pictures to make the course popular. I began with 3 students — no one wanted a new teacher and a course that might not give them adequate credits. Girls from 2nd year (I remember their names 🙂 ) came asking me: “what are you planning to do with us? How will you execute the course?” It instantly struck me as “WOW! I had not done this in my student days!” And thus started the journey…from 3 students, we moved to 12 in the first week, and finally the class got locked at 28.

Life for the past one year has taken such a dramatic turn that it is difficult to sometimes collate the theoretical and praxical aspects that it offers. Being a teacher has been perhaps the only thing that brought some degree of satisfaction in a chaotic, whirlwind, drama-queen kind of life that Anne chose through the last one year in an attempt to find her identity in the wilderness of brand IIT. Last time when I visited IIT B, some friends (PD in particular) mentioned that I should keep notes of my classes and the experiments that the entire class gets involved in, for posterity. However, that’s tough for a particularly lazy character. This blog post is a series of short experiential notes on my role as a teacher and the theoretical and praxical angles involved in teaching. There is a disclaimer attached here — this post is not a prescriptive model and I don’t claim through this post that i have been successful as a teacher. My experience in this field is far too short and the challenges are many.

My first class started with a quarrel with Aristotle’s quote cited at the beginning of this article. Actually, I must admit (citing my sources for my students) that I was inspired by the movie Legally Blonde and the movie had a deep impact on my psyche before I went for research 🙂 .Being a rule breaker myself, accepting Aristotle’s ideas has been tough. It was difficult to convince the class that Aristotle’s opinion might be just one among many opinions and that — “Law without passion is no law”. Law-makers of the world are perhaps (including the great Aristotle himself) the most passionate of professionals. Similarly, literature or technology without passion is neither literature nor technology in my opinion…. Questions were many from the class and the skepticism in the tone of the 28 proved that they were tough-nuts to crack. As students (including me) we take for granted that if someone is of the stature of Aristotle then he/she ‘MUST BE RIGHT’. The perils of passive acceptance are innumerable and questioning cliches and norms do not come easily to us who have been taught right from our childhood ‘NOT TO QUESTION ELDERS’ 🙂 . However, Aristotle made it sure that the entire semester was not going to be an easy run either for the teacher or the students. For the first time in my life, I was learning that multidisciplinary studies (which was my favourite dictum as a student) is easier said than done. Teaching literature to technologists is not a cake walk. If they are not interested then you are doomed, if they are interested then too you are doomed 🙂 . Parth had asked me the day I went for my job presentation, “Ma’am how does one write a novel?” I am still attempting to find an answer to that question :).The number of texts that we chose to read baffled us at the end of the semester. But there was a common element that kept us united as a class — PASSION to learn and drive to know. We explored the length and breadth of Indian literary history through the course of this semester.

There are a few interesting anecdotes that will always bring a smile — these anecdotes basically relate to the complete anesthetic feeling that modern educational systems insulated in boundaries of disciplines have inculcated in us. We live in the comfortable boundaries of disciplines created by our standardized egos — ‘I am a Humanities Person’, ‘I am a Computer Scientist’, I am a technocrat’. These students for the first time broke my own ego quotient as a humanities researcher. As a teacher, I observed that when these boundaries are suddenly broken, the impact is either that of a complete cultural shock or pure enlightenment ecstasy. For instance, the class was reading “Champak Blossoms” from Sarojini Naidu’s Golden Threshold. I was trying really hard to explain the joy of smelling the first blossoms of Champak flowers explored by Naidu in her poems. The joy of such an experience seemed a little far-fetched for these hardcore computer or electronics students, some of whom perhaps never have seen a Champak tree in their lives. The humdrum of labs and core-subject problems and before that the massive load of JEE entrances have made these young minds insulated to the subtle aspects of life. Nikhil immediately asked me: “Ma’am how does a Champak flower look like?” What was implied in his question is that “poets are boring to find pleasure in smelling and then writing about Champak flowers” 🙂 . We decided to search and look at the Champak flowers after the class. I knew that the champak blossoms were aplenty in the campus and it wasn’t difficult to find one near the academic area. The entire class after the class-hour stood by the corridor while Nikhil and I saw the Champak blossoms :D. Nikhil decided to pluck a few Champak blossoms and smell it. I and the others of the class were also presented some of these blossoms by Nikhil 🙂 . Suddenly the watchman came running after Nikhil, but he was extremely puzzled and nonplussed when he saw the rest of the class, including me standing and happily smelling the Champak blossoms in the corridor! 😀 The purpose was experiential learning — we tend to learn fast from experience. Probably, a lifetime of explaining Naidu wouldn’t have worked the wonders that smelling those Champak flowers did.

I have been fortunate as a teacher — because I was given the liberty by the directors, colleagues, and the students especially who have been teaching me while learning from me. Tagore and Gitanjali is another such anecdote. Reading Tagore is not an easy job. I just barged into my director’s office and requested him to let me have open-air classes, outdoor classes — he was a bit puzzled for a second and then smiled said, “it is your class and your call” . Then on, Tagore happened in the lawns outside and I have never in my life enjoyed reading Gitanjali the way we did during those months of September-October in the slight drizzle and with the breeze blowing outside, creating an ambiance that perhaps Tagore himself might have had when he was composing these verses in the forests near Silaidaha. As a class we were rhythmically and collectively experiencing the joy of creativity that Tagore’s profound verses offer. I was myself taught Tagore within the boundaries of a classroom, but got a chance to experience Tagore as the eclectic philosopher-poet for the first time in so many years.

Nived, and some others came up with the title “Creatineers” for this small but extremely lit-savvy group. We organized RAP sessions in some evenings where we spent hours in the cabal mode talking, discussing, and listening to creative pieces either self-composed or else from famous poets and authors. Dheeraj would always run to the city to get cakes, pizza and goodies 🙂 . In fact, last time when I got a chance to visit Jaipur for a day we had our 5th RAP session the night before I left. We continued well unto midnight reading and listening — they made my gloomy evening lively and full of joy.

A few days ago I called up my thesis supervisor and joyfully informed him, “Sir, Naman and Tanjul’s papers have got accepted in an international conference! Sir, they are my 3rd year computer science students!” He was overjoyed, and said “My blessings to my academic grand-children Anne! I am their academic Taaa taaa” 🙂 . That day I realized the joy that he must have felt when my first paper got accepted in an international conference — hmmm, experiential learning.

Being a teacher for researchers has been a different experience altogether. We learn to question our needs through these sessions. The modes that researchers communicate in are unique and that’s what we have been trying to understand in a joint effort in the class. As a scholar myself (not very long ago), I understand the difficult job of “unlearning”. We have been collectively trying to unlearn in these classes. I won’t divulge anymore details about the research classes except the fact that no amount of theory can ever equate itself with ‘do it yourself’ mode.

Nostalgia is not a great virtue. However, I am continuously transported across time to my own student days and cannot resist narrating stories from those times. In the first year of my PG, a new faculty joined our department. That was his first class with us (well, he still remembers my defiant manners). He was teaching us “Metaphysical Poetry” (a favourite subject) and John Donne. I was chewing a gum and had an ancient copy of the “Metaphysical Poets” in my hand. The teacher saw the book on my desk while he was reciting the poem. Out of curiosity he asked me, “library copy?” I looked up and gave him a stubborn look and nodded. He was even more curious, “where did you borrow this from?” I looked back at him in slight contempt and slight defiance and replied dryly with the gum still in my mouth: “No I have INHERITED it! That’s my grandpa’s!” So soon have the wheels of time moved and the tables turned 🙂 ….

Time flies and I have realized that none of the teaching theories match with the moment when as a teacher you walk up to the teaching aisle and when you face the thirty odd eyes tearing you apart, questioning you, testing you, and eager to learn from you, and teach you.You have to really want to be there if you want to be there. Teaching is not for the fainthearted and again I would fight with Aristotle that “laws of teaching have to be free from passion” 🙂 . Without passion a teacher is only an instructor. One of these days Ajay was chatting with me on Facebook and he shared, “Ma’am if I ever become a teacher I am going to start my class with that quote from Aristotle” …. I consider that statement as my greatest reward ever.

It’s 2 am now and I am listening to an old favourite, a song of Bob Dylan that uncannily matches my post here, ‘Times they are a Changin'” :

“Come mothers and fathers Throughout the land And don’t criticize What you can’t understand Your sons and your daughters Are beyond your command Your old road is rapidly agin’ Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand For the times they are a-changin’” — From Times They Are A Changin’

(This article is dedicated to my students at IIT Indore, LNMIIT, The Creatineers, and IIT Gandhinagar)

Blog with Integrity

Follow Iris

All rights to the posts are retained by the author/s of the posts. Any form of commercial or individual reproduction without prior permission of the author/s shall be considered as infringement under copyright laws.